“I believe we have much in common, sir,” she said. “We are both caught up in events larger than ourselves, and we must make choices that we sometimes find unsavory if we are to do what is right.”
I attempted a smile. “What events are you involved in, madam?”
She leaned closer. “I cannot speak of them now. Not here. It is too soon and too public.” She gazed across the room and, indeed, William Duer was looking at us most pointedly. “Would you be willing to meet with me again, sir? Have I given you sufficient reason to do so?”
“A man need never look too hard to find a reason to meet with a pretty lady.”
“I do not know that I am vulnerable to flattery,” she said, not unkindly.
“Shall we make an effort to find out?” I asked.
“That sounds most delightful.”
“When shall we talk again?”
“Have you an engagement for two nights hence?”
I bowed. “I am yours to command.”
“I am so pleased.” Coming toward us once more was Jacob Pearson, now alone, Cynthia being across the room speaking with the beautiful Mrs. Bingham. Mrs. Maycott reached out and grabbed Pearson’s wrist. “Mr. Pearson, would it be an imposition if I bring a dear friend to dinner the night after next?”
He looked at me and was unable to contain his surprise, but then seemed to recollect himself, or perhaps Mrs. Maycott. “You may, of course, bring anyone you like. Unless it is this man here. I cannot like him.”
“Such wit,” she said. “Certainly it is Captain Saunders. We both look forward to the evening.” Mrs. Maycott paused not a moment, but took my arm and led me away. “You see, nothing is more easily effected.”
“I am not certain I will be made to feel welcome,” I said.
“And I am not sure either of us cares. I, however, will have the pleasure of offering consternation to a man I do not like, and you will have the opportunity to pry further into his business. We shall both, in the end, be made happy.”
Joan Maycott
Spring 1791
There were days lost. I do not apologize for that weakness, though when some remnant of clarity returned to me, when I escaped the deepest fog of grief, I vowed I would never again give in to such madness, not on any account. They were days when my enemies ate and slept and prospered and advanced their goals, while I did nothing, and in doing nothing I aided them, for that is how it is when faced with evil men. One must either resist or, in varying degrees, collaborate.
The day after he was murdered, we interred Andrew in the churchyard. Several men from the settlement unceremoniously hauled Hendry’s body to town and dumped it in the mud of Pittsburgh, as it deserved. I took no pleasure in the contrast. After Andrew’s funeral, my friends guided me to the isolated hunting cabin shared by the men of the settlement. They told me it was important not to remain in my own home, that it had been damaged, though not destroyed, in the fire. I was too lost in my own confusion to inquire of the details.
At first my grief was so great I was like a woman sleeping with her eyes open, seeing all about me, understanding none of it. Then at last, after some days, I began to emerge from this first numb stage of grief, though what came next was worse by far, for I understood the enormity of what had been wrenched from me. I had lost my Andrew, I had lost our child, I had lost my work, my home, my purpose. In this whole universe, nothing was left that meant anything to me. It was as though some great hand had come and wiped away all that had ever given me cause to take a breath.
I could do little more than weep and clutch my knees to my chest and lament. Mr. Dalton and Mr. Skye, for reasons I did not yet understand, spent long periods of time in the hunting cabin. When not out in search of game, the Irishman stomped about the cabin in a rage, swearing vengeance, clenching his fists, ripping off bites of his tobacco twist as though he could rip off Tindall’s flesh by doing so. Mr. Skye, in his far more subdued manner, sat by my side. He made perpetual efforts to feed me venison broth and bits of buttered corn bread, and it was by his efforts that I did not starve.
When Mr. Skye grew too tired or restless to tend to me, Jericho Richmond sat in his place. I took comfort in his silent company, yet there was a darkness in his gaze too. His brooding wood-colored eyes hung on me-in pity, yes, but something else.
Once I turned to him and said, “I am dead now. I have lost everything.”
“You are not dead,” he said. “But you are different.”
I looked away, for I did not wish to hear more.
“Be mindful of it,” he said. “You have sway over these men.”
I had no wish to be careful or thoughtful or anything else, and after he spoke these words I found I did not love Mr. Richmond’s company. It was Mr. Skye who proved my most attendant nurse. I welcomed his presence but refused, at first, his ministrations. I would shake my head and push away his spoon when he tried to feed me. Oh, I was cruel to him. I called him names, a withered old man who knew nothing of what I had lost. Unlike him, I could not simply sail to distant shores when my life lay in ruins. I felt nothing but regret and self-hatred even as I spoke the words, yet I could not stop them, and so I only wept more. Mr. Skye, that good man, nodded in understanding and offered me another spoonful of soup. In the end, I ate.
On what I believe was the third or fourth day, I began to shake off the greatest torpidity of grief. That is not to say I no longer felt grief keenly or was no longer weighed down by it. On the contrary, I knew it would kill me, and I would welcome death, if I did not find some means of converting my sorrow to something of purpose. I sat up straight and looked at Mr. Skye, who had been sitting and gazing out the little cabin’s window. “Something must be done about Tindall,” I said.
“It is not for you to do,” he answered.
“And why not? Did he not take everything from me? Am I to be content to lie quiet? I will travel to Pittsburgh and swear out an arrest on him.”
Mr. Skye’s lips were colorless, though he’d been biting them incessantly. “You cannot go to Pittsburgh. There is a warrant out for you for the murder of Hendry.” He paused to take in a deep breath of air. “And Andrew.”
I threw off the blanket that covered me and leaped to my feet. I had been abed for days, in the same dress I had worn to Andrew’s funeral, and had I been driven by anything other than the most vivid of rages, I might have fallen over from dizziness. “Do not say it! He cannot dare to accuse me of his own crime, of killing my beloved Andrew!”
Misunderstanding my outrage for unendurable sadness, Mr. Skye moved to embrace me, but I pushed him away-more cruelly than I would have wished, but I suppose I already understood I might be as cruel to him as I liked without risk of his resentment.
“Don’t try to comfort me. How can you sit here, feeding me soup, while the man who murdered my husband blames his crimes on me? What sort of man are you?”
He looked into my face full on, something he rarely did, and I saw precisely what sort of man he was. I saw it in his unwavering eyes of cold gray, how he showed neither surprise nor anger. I did not know what I would do with him, but I already knew I would do something.
“What kind of man am I? A wanted man. I am here because the warrant has been sworn for me as well. And for Dalton, aye. Tindall means to use his crimes to end our distilling, and that’s the truth of it. Now, have you anything else you wish to say to me?”
I sat back down upon the rugged bed with its rough straw mattress and said nothing. I did not weep. My mood was too dark for that. Instead, I searched my mind for some answer, some response to this horror that would not end.